Dam8610

Total bust. Rebuild is doomed. DFA and move on.

"I support all progressive policies, but literally no candidates who will enact those policies." See the contradiction here?

Hardly a mandate? A 12% margin of victory is considered a landslide in politics. For perspective, the last president to win a presidential election by 12% or more won the electoral vote 525-13. 12% is about as close to a mandate as you'll get in the political world.

When will @Reddy condemn these centrists for not going blue no matter who?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/nyregion/ocasio-cortez-crowley-twitter.html I don't think it's just her. Crowley could declare himself for literally any other office to get his name taken off the ballot, but he's not. If he was truly endorsing and supporting her candidacy, he would.

I can't wait to see @Reddy strongly condemn these two for not accepting defeat and backing the winner of the primary.

I agreed with you. I don't think anyone else's offer came close to theirs. I was originally responding to the hypothetical question of "What would be a good second piece to go along with Albies that would match Cease in value?"

I don't think so, but if you're looking for a second piece to Albies to match up with Cease, Allard is a good guess.

Kolby Allard?

They're batting him lead off now (IMO) to get him as many PAs as possible. He likely will bat somewhere between 3 and 5 on a competitive team.

But I want the cornerstones to bust out AND get Adley Rutschman.

You're likely right, I'm just hoping for a (likely unrealistic) scenario in which all the key rebuild guys do well and the bullpen is a flaming gas can outside of Fry and gives up every late lead the team has.

The Sox need a Tigers style year end tank. The pen needs to be just atrocious and they need to trade Abreu and Garcia for a crapton of lottery tickets.

Goldschmidt was actually a name that came to mind if the White Sox miss all the big targets (Harper, Machado, Arenado). The only foreseeable problem with that to me is that if several of these outfielders and Collins make it, you've used up one of 1B and DH for Goldschmidt. That's definitely a good problem to have, though.

Step 1: Get #1 pick in 2019 draft Step 2: Sign literally $1 billion of free agent contracts in the offseason (Harper, Machado, Keuchel, Corbin, Kimbrel). Step 3: Draft Adley Rutschman, who shows he's MLB ready and Buster Posey caliber by season's end. Step 4: CHAMPIONSHIP! That's the level of absurdity it would take for the White Sox to win it all in 2019, or even have a chance. That said, this exercise did spawn an interesting strategy in my head. Unlikely though it certainly is, this seems the place to discuss absurd ideas at the moment. What if the White Sox were to sign Harper in 2019 and Arenado in 2020? Could that, combined with the drastic upswing in talent we should see by the end of 2020, be enough to raise revenues enough to allow the team to keep its core in addition to those contracts?

I think acquiring one of those two players would, in concert with the improvements of younger players on the ML team and the additional wave of talent that I think we'll see in 2019, bring the Sox out of competition for a Top 5 pick and into the range of a .500 ballclub, with a competitive team a distinct possibility in 2020. That said, by 2020, including the major league roster, the following players will likely need opportunities at the MLB level, provided they don't bust before then: Starting Pitchers 1. Carlos Rodon 2. Rey Lopez 3. Lucas Giolito 4. Dylan Covey 5. Michael Kopech 6. Spencer Adams 7. Jordan Stephens 8. Jordan Guerrero 9. Alec Hansen 10. Dylan Cease 11. Dane Dunning 12. Bernardo Flores 13. Jimmy Lambert Catchers 1. Kevan Smith 2. Seby Zavala 3. Zack Collins Infielders 1. Yoan Moncada 2. Tim Anderson 3. Yolmer Sanchez 4. Danny Mendick 5. Laz Rivera 6. Nick Madrigal 7. Jake Burger 8. Gavin Sheets Outfielders 1. Avisail Garcia 2. Eloy Jimenez 3. Luis Alexander Basabe 4. Joel Booker 5. Luis Robert 6. Blake Rutherford 7. Micker Adolfo 8. Luis Gonzalez Based on that list, the only glaring hole that stands out to me is 3B. Yolmer plays the position respectably, but it's hard to deny that a Machado or Arenado wouldn't be a massive upgrade. There aren't many 1B there, but I think Collins and one of the outfielders may end up splitting time there, with a rotating DH as well. To me, 3B is by far the top free agent priority, with bullpen and starting pitching a distant second (there are so many arms in the system, I can't see how a good pitching staff doesn't develop out of it).

Well, he eventually turned into part of the package that acquired Rutherford, so if he becomes what we hope, the Sox could still come out ahead.

$600 million was contract totals. That would likely translate to $85 million of expenditure for 2019. Still not happening because this team isn't close enough to do it. If they sign Machado or Harper, it's because those two were available in 2019 and they're 26, not because the team thinks they're close to the end of the process. Obviously having one of those two players makes the playoffs more likely, but they're also looking term franchise cornerstones that you build around.

Because everyone was supposed to come up and immediately play like an all-star, obviously. That's what player development is, getting to the MLB level and immediately getting great results. I mean, if Mike Trout and Bryce Harper can do it, we shouldn't expect any less from our guys.

Or Javier Vazquez?

So you agree that it was his platform that enabled him to have the success he was able to have fundraising, but call it celebrity. Got it. What's the relevance of me not being a political consultant? Most people aren't. That doesn't make their opinions irrelevant. Why disparage the source? If it's a fact based article, then there will be citations in it that will make the website it came from irrelevant (or it won't, in which case call out the author for that). If it's an op-ed, then disregard it as such, but an op-ed from truthout.org is no more or less fact based than an op-ed from newyorktimes.com. Either way, there's no reason to disparage the source and doing so contributes to that condescending look you have that another poster talked about recently.

Bernie's celebrity? Lol, the biggest reason he lost was that he didn't have the national name recognition of Hillary Clinton. It was Bernie's platform, not his "celebrity" (which, again, is hilarious considering his campaign announcement came in a rather nondescript press conference outside the Senate chamber and no one knew who he was at the time), that garnered all of that money. And yes, I do believe working harder and getting out more would lead to more progressive victories. In my district, for example, I didn't even know of the existence of Larry Chubb until the night before the primary, and that was only because I actively went in search of a candidate that actually shared my views on the issues. Of course I voted for him, but with Visclosky being a 33 year incumbent, having all the money and support of the local party, and lazy party line voters who don't do that kind of research, there's no way he was going to lose without an extreme ground game from the other candidate. Chubb would've had to knock tens of thousands of doors like Ocasio-Cortez did to overcome all those disadvantages he started out working against. This is an example of how stances on issues have nothing to do with these candidates winning or losing elections. It wasn't Visclosky's superior platform that allowed him to win, it was Democrat cronyism, money, and the incumbency advantage.

There was never no money in politics, and Bernie Sanders was raising as much money without PAC money as Hillary Clinton was with PAC money. When I say "money in politics is bad", I mean the money that came about as a result of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. People should be allowed to contribute to campaigns within the limits of the law (without the legal loopholes that allow people to make hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions, no one person should be allowed to donate more than $2,700 to a campaign), but this is one of the many cases where Corporations should not be given personhood.

All that proves is that money in politics is bad.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/23/public-support-for-single-payer-health-coverage-grows-driven-by-democrats/ https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/two-thirds-americans-support-free-college-tuition-n620856 http://thehill.com/homenews/335837-poll-bipartisan-majority-supports-raising-minimum-wage https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-tax/three-quarters-of-americans-favor-higher-taxes-for-wealthy-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSL2N1MM024 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-poll/most-americans-want-aggressive-action-on-climate-change-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN18X198 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/23/two-thirds-of-americans-give-priority-to-developing-alternative-energy-over-fossil-fuels/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/ https://www.aclu.org/news/91-percent-americans-support-criminal-justice-reform-aclu-polling-finds That's why I think these policies would win anywhere. Because the polls say they will.